Jailed son of cleric ‘kidnapped’ in hospital: family

The family of Mehdi Hashemi, the jailed son of senior cleric Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, have spoken out against the way their son was transferred to jail from hospital.

Mehdi Hashemi, who has been detained since September pending investigations, was recently transferred to hospital to undergo heart procedures.

In an email relayed to several reporters, the Hashemi Rafsanjani family challenges the “strange and questionable” manner in which Mehdi Hashemi was returned to jail from hospital.

The email describes that the patient was “kidnapped” without the knowledge of the physicians or nurses as he was being rolled in a wheelchair to the CT scan section. He was then placed in an ambulance and taken to prison.

The family stresses that the tests run on Hashemi reveal kidney problems and that he was in need of immediate scans.

Mehdi Hashemi was visited in hospital by his father, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsajani, the head of Iran’s Expediency Council. Reports indicate that he told his father that he was not presented with any evidence of charges against him in any of the interrogations he faced during 43 days in solitary confinement.

Some Iranian media have intimated in the past week that Mehdi Hashemi’s illness is a ruse to get him out of jail.

The family has condemned the reports as slanderous and has publicized medical reports to prove the gravity of his condition.

Mehdi Hashemi is being held under suspicion of fomenting unrest after the controversial presidential elections of 2009, when allegations of vote fraud led to widespread mass protests.